


Ecopoint Antarctica - Someone Always Needs to Smile

by Leptailurus



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Implied Fareeha "Pharah" Amari/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler - Freeform, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 10:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9379925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leptailurus/pseuds/Leptailurus
Summary: Originally posted as a Christmas Calendar on tumblr with a new installment popping up every day between December 1st and December 25th.---The team needs to go back to Ecopoint Antarctica to retrieve vital information before Talon can get to it. The visit takes a toll on Mei, who can't escape the reminders of her lost friends from that research station. Zarya decides to do everything in her power to bring that smile back onto Mei's face - but will she succeed?





	

**Author's Note:**

> [Disclaimer: At the time of structuring this story, I only had access to a few screenshots of the new OW map “Ecopoint Antarctica”. For that reason (and for story telling convenience) the two US climatologists that were cryo-frozen at Ecopoint Antarctica are not included in this piece. Mei & others will refer to the the other climatologists (Torres from Spain, Arrhenius from Sweden and Opara from Numbani) by last name, but using them much like first names. Lastly, I find it incredibly hard to see through Blizzard’s messed up timeline for Overwatch. This is fiction, so whatever. XD]

-1- Mei, 2076, a memory from 2051, somewhere in China 

My grandmother used to say: There must always be someone who is smiling. All my life, I have tried to be that person. Even if there is already someone around who is positive, another person can only be helpful. I had adopted her advice from a young age on and practiced my smile as much as I could.  
Sometimes, keeping up that smile is hard work, but my grandmother and I used to make it a game to find the good aspect in every situation, no matter what had happened. She had absolutely mastered the art – she had worked her smile through her daughter’s death and so many other hardships in life. Even when I was very little, I always noticed the effect she had on people. They liked her – genuinely – because they all needed that smile in their lives. I consider it her legacy to carry her good spirit into the next generation, no matter how hard it can be.

Keeping your smile is easier, when the world is not hard on you. Getting into climatology was a strain on many researchers, despite their passion for finding truths. Torres and Opara would sometimes sit around, lamenting the fate of the planet and what humans and omnics had done to it. But for me, it felt easier. While investigating this planet, I saw that it was still beautiful and it will live longer than both humans and omnics. And we, as researchers and humans, were in the lucky position to have the resources and the intelligence to investigate this problem and tackle it. How lucky we were! They would sometimes forget it, but I was there to remind them.

There are times when even I struggle with that smile, though. Today, I struggled. In a moment of surprise, it is easy to forget who you want to be, after all.

 

-2- Mei, September 2076, the common room (current events)

“We have new intel, everyone, and Ana, Winston and I have been working on a plan on how to react to it,” Soldier 76 tells us. I gently place a plate of cookies on the table before I seat myself. I try to look casual and unobtrusive, but I know everyone is very aware of it. It’s just not very professional to bring cookies to a meeting so I keep it low, but I know that fighters are always hungry – some more than others - and this plate will make them very happy. A smile sweeps across Zarya’s face as she reaches for a shameless fist full, nodding gratefully to me. I can feel my heart do a leap as her green eyes meet my gaze. 

I catch myself and quickly turn away – it isn’t wise to dwell on such feelings. It tends to complicate things in a working environment and I have seen it happen before. For example, at Ecopoint Antarctica, we were meant to go there with two more people, but personal problems got in the way and our team was suddenly reduced to four. I do not want to witness this again and I certainly do not want to be the cause. Time to pull myself together.

“Let’s hear it - and then crush whoever needs to be crushed!” Zarya relates in her distinct, hard accent, before throwing a cookie into her mouth.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Mercy interjects with a smile. As always she is informed ahead of time, thanks to her closeness to the original members of Overwatch.

“Well, spit it out, luv!” Lena seems restless. It seems so odd she would still call everyone ‘luv’ in a strategic meeting - but we all love her for it.

Winston scratches his dark chin and clears his throat: “It looks like Talon, for whichever reason, has intentions to steal … specific data.” The weird hesitation in his voice throws me off a little. I also notice a strange side glance in my general direction. “Old data, to be fair, but nonetheless useful information we do not want in their hands.”  
Tracer raises a questioning eyebrow. “Like keepin’ us in suspense, do you?”

There is an odd pause and I catch Mercy looking thoughtfully at me. I get increasingly more uncomfortable. Getting attention for baking cookies to make everyone happy is one thing, but getting some strange extra attention at a strategic meeting makes me a bit queasy. Especially if it is Mercy – she has a habit of not hiding much on her face and right now… she seems concerned.

Soldier nudges Mercy’s elbow and she takes the word. “That’s not it,” she replies decisively, now fully turned towards me. “We do not know the exact nature of the data, but there is someone who does.” Well, there is no escaping her blue eyes now, is there?

“What…? Me…?” I ask carefully, even though I am fairly certain I know the answer.

Soldier and Ana nod - but thankfully, it’s Mercy who ends up continuing. Her voice has always something soothing to it and with what she throws at me next, I need that extra kindness. 

“It looks like Talon is trying to invade Ecopoint Antarctica…”

 

-3- Mei, September 2076, the common room (current events)

The knot in my stomach, placed there long ago by Zarya, tightens for a whole different set of reasons. However, keeping true to the vow of strength and positivity I gave to my grandmother, I meet Mercy’s gaze without turning away. I try to nod as professionally as I can and reply. “What do you need to know?” Everyone’s eyes are searing into my cheeks, making them burn against my will.

Winston folds his hands on the table: “Is there anything at all that could relate to your cryo-blaster or any other defense mechanisms or technology? I know you were researching the climate, but sometimes these things go hand in hand.”

Off the top of my head I can think of twenty or thirty reasons why Talon should not download any data from the EP Computers, but I know I will stumble, if I blabber it out right away. I take a breather, pretending to think, even though I really do not need to.

To keep my nervousness as low as I can, I try not to look at Zarya (who has stopped eating cookies and is looking at me curiously). I keep my eyes firmly on Winston instead, knowing that when it comes to the sensitivity of data and the implications, he is most likely to understand the seriousness of it all. I take a second, deep breath before I dare to reply, reminding myself to stay professional.

“The instructions for the blaster are not in there… but basically everything you need to know to easily come up with it. There is also data about weak points in various topographic regions, possible eruption sites for volcanos across the globe - and how, if necessary, they can be triggered prematurely. There are maps towards valuable resources that can be used, among other things, in weapons and other devices - and I am certain there is information about our communication with Overwatch at the time of the research. Plus…” I hesitate, hoping the strain in my voice will be understood as concern about the sensitivity of the data - and not as my trying to escape the memories of lost friends, “Torres and I speculated on how the cryogenic liquid stored at Ecopoint Antarctica could be modified to do….” I close my eyes for a beat, “…unspeakable damage. “ 

“And you made notes on that?” Ana’s gaze seems to want to drill a hole into my eye sockets. Confronted with her naturally harsh tone of voice, I can’t help but feel like I made a huge mistake keeping all those notes or never having the strength to go back and retrieve what we left behind.

“We are- uh- were researchers. It’s common to take notes on… on everything,” I defend myself and my former colleagues. What I cannot defend, however, is that after almost a year, the data is still there.

Winston frowns - and he looks so dangerous when he does that. “This is grave. There is no doubt we should prevent them from getting anything from there at all costs.”  
I cannot help, but agree. This information in Talon’s hands could potentially be devastating - if they understand how to make use of it. Soldier taps his hand on the table and looks at the available agents – he always does that before he makes decisions. I can see him ponder – see his eyes wander from one member to the next and linger on me for a couple more moments than on anyone else. I want to shrink in my seat.

“Mei is a given,” he says decisively. “No one knows the site better than you do.” What an understatement. “Zarya, you’ll be perfectly fine with the terrain and the climate, I think?”  
Zarya laughs. “Of course. It’s basically Russia without the rocks.”

“Pharah, how does your suit fare in such conditions?”

“Perfectly fine,” she replies dutifully, her voice strong and obedient, as always.

Mercy smiles. “So will the Valkyrie suit.”

“So, Mei, Zarya, myself, Mercy, Pharah and…” Soldier looks around, ”How about you, Reinhardt?”

“Of course!” Reinhardt’s voice thunders across the table. “You can always count on me!”

“That should be more than sufficient, given that because of Mei we have the advantaged of knowing the terrain. Fareeha, logistics are on you, Mercy, supplies, Reinhardt, check our transport, Mei, see that you can find or make us a map.” He nods decisively. “That should be it. Prepare to dispatch in three days.”

So soon. I swallow the lump in my throat and nod. “Halé.”

 

-4- Mei, September 2076, a memory of April 2067, Ecopoint Antarctica

There was no need to discuss further ideas or what other chances we would have. The cryo-containers had been installed for a reason - with the hope of never having to use them, but now here we were. We had all helped writing and repeatedly read our own handbook, so we all could only come to one and the same rational conclusion as to what our next step would be. It would be fine, though – a little unnerving, maybe, but it was just a cryo-freeze for a short while, right? Exciting, but ultimately, solid, reliable science. We’d be fine.

Thinking back, the way we prepared ourselves for the freeze reminds me of the missions I have these days with our current team, composed of ex-Overwatch members and new faces. At Ecopoint Antarctica we also distributed last minute tasks and checkups and each of us efficiently followed Torres’ instructions. It was my job to set up the computers so they would continuously send out our plea for rescue. I was so certain that preparing enough messages for two years was already overdoing it. Little did I know.

Meanwhile Arrhenius and Opara did check-ups on the function of the cryo-containers and the cryo liquid. Torres took it upon himself to print and waterproof the instructions on how to take us out of our suspended state once we would be rescued. We could not anticipate how inexperienced our rescuers would be, so we tried to be on the safe side as much as possible. Human error is, after all, the most dangerous factor. As a final step, we debriefed each other one last time on the exact process and the order of the freeze - and every step we would take until even the last person, Torres, would be safely in his pod.

I assumed as the youngest I would be the first to go, but it was Arrhenius who volunteered. I do not know whether he could see how afraid I was, or whether he thought his somewhat older life was more expandable, if something should go wrong. Maybe he just thought if it did not work, he’d rather die in a botched cryo-freeze than wait out coldness and starvation with the rest of us.

We hugged him goodbye and as required, he changed into the thin cryo wear, worn purely for modesty. Cryo-freezing would have worked even better without clothes altogether, but maintaining some decency was absolutely acceptable. These clothes would not interfere much.

Arrhenius immediately started shivering – after all, we were in the middle of an an Antarctic blizzard and had powered our station down to a minimum, including heating. The last thing he said was “I am looking forward to being asleep. Nobody can stand this forsaken weather in these skimpy clothes for long!” 

“See you in a bit,” Opara smiled and closed the container. It fogged up from the outside before we could see anything really happening. We did not dare to touch it for the next few minutes, until the monitor indicated the freeze had been a success. When we wiped the thin white sheen of frost off the cold glass, Arrhenius was standing there peacefully in his cryo liquid, as if asleep. The sight was appeasing and it did take some of my worries away.

My eyes wandered to the big, cylindrical liquid container in the center of the room. It looked as full as ever. We had brought enough to last us for many years, but not because we anticipated a long cryo-freeze. The material was meant for many different purposes, but so far we had barely used any of it, due to unforeseen developments in the projects that required our attention elsewhere. Now, it seemed we had an abundance of the stuff, but nobody felt like joking about how we would be perfectly fine like deep-frozen steaks for the next decade. We were not that happy with the having to go throught this.

It was my turn next. Taking off my clothes, I finally realized how cold it was in this place. Our coats were such valuable and yet common assets, I often forgot what hight-tech material they were made of, especially when working. But it would get much, much colder than this, wouldn’t it? Such a scary thought, but I reminded myself that I would not know the cold. I would be gone, non-functional, like an omnic on pause before it could really get to me. For me, weeks and months could go by and I would not notice – I would close my eyes in the container and open them again in what would feel the blink of a second. I wished Opara and Torres a hearty goodbye and I smiled for them because I did not want them to think I was scared or did not trust the science. I did not want them to be afraid – someone always needs to smile.

“Our duckling,” Opara laughed, referring to my meager twenty-two years. “Good night.”

By convention, the containers are made in such a way that the person inside it has to press the final button when they are ready. I was terribly cold and stuck in a tiny, uncomfortable space – I did not hesitate for long. The last thing I remember is my finger pushing down on the button and a sound, as if the gates to a waterfall had been opened.  
I wish I could say everything went dark, or something exciting like that, but it did not. I was just gone, torn out of consciousness and completely unaware of the predicament I was in.

Naturally, I lost all track of time - so when I opened my eyes. It really felt like the blink of a second.

But it had been almost nine years.

 

-5- Mei, September 2076, Mei’s room (current events)

I pace around in my room and Snowball, as if picking up on my inner turmoil, buzzes around me and makes it all a lot a worse. I just want to curl up and close my eyes and not have to think about this, but I have been given a task, haven’t I? I can’t go back and not present a map of the various containers strewn about the site and what they contain…  
But how do they want me to do that? Take out my photos of Torres and the rest of our research family and use them to remind myself of s place I once put my heart - just so I can draw maps on paper? They cannot understand that I have not taken out these photos since I put them on the shelf.  
I hug my arms around myself, dive into my mind and try to play my grandmother’s game – find something positive about this. But I emerge with empty hands. The idea of engaging my mind with past events is wrecking my nerves already. There is nothing good about this, asides from thwarting Talon’s plans - but I can’t find comfort in that right now. 

Snowball nudges my back.

“Please stop,” I whimper, even though I meant to tell him that in kind, but I just cannot manage. Snowball halts in midair and even though he barely has two shape-shifting LED-powered eyes, I can see some sort of shock in them. Or is that worry? Hard to tell with a bot, even if it’s my cute little Snowball. “Sorry… just let me think for a moment.” I look at my companion with honest fondness, but I know I can’t deal with him right now. At least he is not sentient enough to feel hurt or hold a grudge.  
“Pease go charge. I need you tomorrow in your best shape. You are my most important companion, after all.” I choose these particular words to calm my own guilt for being so irrationally irritated with him right now.

I grab a pillow and hug it to myself. With little conviction, I try to tell my mind that I have a job to do and I can’t sit here and contemplate how much I dread doing it. Stil, my body won’t move and I am glued to the spot for many minutes, staring at Snowball, now sleeping on his charging station.

Then the door flies open. I can’t remember whether I heard a knock or even said anything. I am still in too much of a lousy state to straighten my posture in time and find my smile again. In fact, I kind of miss out on who is opening the door for a second there. Or I just automatically assume it must be Mercy because she seemed to have grasped how hard this is for me, even when I tried to conceal it during the meeting. She is perceptive, to say the least, and her eyes have watched me leave the meeting with worry and pity - and I disliked it so much. This is not what grandma and I had in mind when it came to impacting the people around us!

That in the door, however, is not Mercy.

“Mei!” Zarya’s trademark volume seems to take over the room. “I got no job, so I came here to help you,” she announces and takes two steps into the room. My heart is both crushed and elated.

 

-6- Mei, September 2076, Mei’s room (Current Events)

Zarya stops and I realize that I am still tightly clinging to my pillow and staring off into space. Almost mechanically I set the pillow back on the bed next to me but I feel like I am densely packed in wool and can move only so slowly. Zarya seems indecisive for a moment, as if she does not know what to do. I grab for that smile, this time a well-practiced one, and try to welcome her, but things don’t feel right. This internal struggle must be incredibly evident on my face because it seems to confuse Zarya even more. She frowns at me.

“You don’t want to go back?” she asks eventually, looking down from her towering height, and it sounds more like a statement than a question. I have studied her features, her manners and her antics so many times from the corner of my eyes that even now I cannot help but analyze her expression. I think she is worried, and there is a hint of pity in her eyes. I don’t like that – I do not want to make her feel that way or think that I am weak. She despises weakness. And I certainly don’t want her to think badly of my dedication to our work. 

As I contemplate this, I do not notice that two or three more seconds go by in which I am staring instead of responding.  
“You do not have to go back,” Zarya states when she has watched me being unresponsive for too long. It is starting to dawn on me that I really should say something before Zarya starts feeling so awkward she will just leave.

“Yes, I do,” I reply quietly, maybe realizing for the first time that this statement is not only true, but that this visit is definitely going to happen in my near future and that I cannot avoid it. “It would be terrible to leave you without the advantage of everything I know about that place.” Not to mention access codes and the location of the data - all of which I cannot possibly note down in detail because half of it will only come back to me when I am there.

“You may be right,” she concedes. I know I am. “But you will not be alone, da? Together, we can be very strong.” The words, so typical of her, fill my heart with warmth. Not only because I like Zarya’s personality a tad too much, but also because I can tell that between the lines, she is telling me (consciously or not) that she has not come here just to draw a map with me. 

I feel the mattress next to me sink in by a considerable margin. I want to lean towards it, but that’s not what I should do, so I don’t.  
“I will be with you the whole time, right by your side,” Zarya promises in her endless kindness. Her good heart is so evident to anyone who will see past the muscles, the harsh accent and the adorable pride she has in her trained body.

“That would be nice,” I agree, sounding far less elated than I meant to be. I look over and catch a smile that makes my stomach tingle. I realize that her being there with me will really help me a lot. It will help me now, too. Consequently, I start wondering whether Mercy has had anything to do with getting her chosen for the mission over Winston and with sending her to my quarters. Mercy knows far too much about me - she is dangerously perceptive and totally willing to flatout ask the most uncomfortable questions. I have no idea whether that’s a doctor thing, but she has caught me off-guard more than once and of course she knows about me feelings.

“Da. We’ll make it quick and then have huge barbecue back here for a successful mission!” Zarya encourages me. It’s so nice of her to want to cheer me up.  
Her kindness allows me to find my smile again and my body seems to thaw out of its rigid paralysis. I can bring myself to get up and reach for my photobooks which I then take to the bed, along with pen and paper. I put the books into Zarya’s lap while I search for my closed laptop under the bed so we can use it as a miniature table to draw on.

Zarya blows the dust off the topmost book and opens it on the first page. The book is half photo-album, half diary. I remember making this with the intention to copy it after the mission and distribute our good memories to Torres, Opara and Arrhenius. I never knew I would never get to do that. However, this means that it is not the kind of diary that one keeps secret - so there is nothing in there that Zarya should not read. There is a just a lot in there that I do not want to read. 

In the picture on the first page has the four of us are standing, arm in arm, taking a first group shot before we will board the plane to Antarctica. Four people. Only one will make it back a decade later, tossed into a world that has aged without her. I can’t help but feel pain at the sight. Three of these people are not with us anymore and I still don’t understand why I am the one who made it through. 

I stare, I struggle. I know there are more photos in there who will tear on my nerves and my composure. I still do not know how I am going to live through this and the mission.  
“You want to tell me about it?” Zarya offers.

I shake my head, swallow and without being able to smile, I say. “Move to the next page. There should be more pictures of the base to help me remember how everything was set up.” I decide for myself that for the next few hours, I will ignore every face in every picture, every emotion in every expression and suppress every memory I have of my time at Ecopoint Antarctica.

Unsurprisingly, I completely fail this goal I have set for myself, but I at least manage to keep my composure enough to not worry Zarya any further.

 

-7- Mei, November 2076, a memory of late December 2075, Ecopoint Antarctica 

The first thing I noticed was that my skin was tingling. Not in a good way. More like that painful tingle you get when you have been sitting on your foot for too long and cut it off from your blood flow. You just know it gets painful once it is done tingling and no amount of stomping on it while make the pain go away any faster. It was like that, but all over my body. I knew it would happen, but when you are in that moment, it’s quite a torture.

I must have made some sort of noise because someone addressed me even before I was willing to open my eyes.

“Miss Zhou? Do you know where you are?”

I could barely hear them. All my senses felt weirdly muffled - from my hearing to whatever I could feel beyond the increasingly more painful tingle. I could vaguely make out the pressure of a thick blanket that was tucked around my shoulders. My limbs felt heavy and there was something on my face - I think my own wet hair. I had trouble telling what my exact position was because while my senses of vertigo and propioception all seemed to be there, they felt weirdly far away.

After a moment of searching for myself, I figured that I was still standing, though someone was holding me up. I think I opened my eyes at that point, but everything was blurry. My eyeballs felt so dry, they hurt. My body had evidently forgotten how to produce tears. I tried to say “Ecopoint Antarctica” and would even have launched into an explanation how I was still in my pod, but my voice just would not deliver. I swallowed and my throat was burning.

“Water…!” I gasped, wishing my body had regained the strength to at least shiver. I had no idea what my temperature would be at this point, but I doubt it was anywhere near normal values.

It took me a moment to feel the straw against my still numb lips. I barely got two sips in before they took it from me. I was aware that this is part of the waking procedure – too much liquid at once would probably have been too much for my artificially slowed physiology. So instead, I was brought back into the world bit by bit, just as Torres’ manual dictated.

“This… is… Ecopoint Antarctica. My cryo-pod,” I managed with barely a voice. My body may have been in a state of half-sleep, but my brain was fully there. I really wished it was not so - I would gladly have gone through this procedure not being conscious.

I slowly blinked the world back into focus. The people holding me were wrapped in thick suits and boots and there was ice and snow and frost all over the floor. It confused me. I did not expect the world to look that different, despite the blizzard.

I was so very thankful when they more or less lifted me into my pants and boots and wrapped me in my coat. The clothes had been warmed appropiately and it helped a lot when it came to making me feel better and regain my strength. Unlike astronauts returning from space, I still had the same body and muscles I used to have. I had not lost a significant amount of anything because I had been without a metabolism of any sort in the cryo pod. I was weak from the waking procedure, but I knew I should be fully intact rather soon. I asked my supporters to slowly let me stand on my own, determined to return to life fully. After all, help had arrived, just as predicted - and that was a really good thing. I was not going to thwart the rescue efforts by being weak and lazy and hogging all attention.

“I am so happy you are here!” I croaked out with honesty. “That storm was a real surprise!”

“Miss Zhou…!” The man’s voice was serious. “Please don’t be alarmed…”

Alarmed? What for? I looked at him - his bearded, serious face. Funny, that I had never seen this particular member of Overwatch before. Or any one of the people standing around. 

I looked around the room for my colleagues – believing the instructions had not put me first in the recall order. Torres had been particularly adamant about that, saying he wanted to be the first to join the living again so he could greet us all as we rose from our pods. I think his real intention was to be the first one they could test the waking procedure on, so if it failed, it would fail on him, not us. I think I was scheduled as the second in the procedure.  
Yet, Torres was not there. I did not dare to think that he had somehow not been woken correctly. It was not likely - the instructions were clear. Maybe he had just been weaker than planned and been put someplace to recover? He sure was older than me.

I tried to take a few more steps, but I stumbled and fell forward with my hands on the cylindrical cryo-liquid container in the center of the room. There was no liquid at the height of my hands anymore. It had all been drained, safe for a few inches at the bottom of the container. My stomach lurched at the sight – a feeling of both confusion and a terrible uneasiness crept up in me.

I looked into the unfamiliar faces and started noticing small things that unnerved me. The material of my rescuers’ coats was completely unfamiliar to me and I could not spot the Overwatch symbol. I was not sure whether I was in danger or not, but I was sure that something was not right. It was when I looked around for Torres that I noticed the other pods were still locked. The frost on the floor was broken by blue patches of liquid. One such puddle was right by Opara’s pod, surrounding it like a shimmering halo.

Opara. Malfunction.

I held on to the cryo-liquid storage as I stumbled around the circle of pods.

Torres. Malfunction.

Torres’ pod was filled with cryo liquid as it should be. But I could make out a handprint against the glass. No. Not a handprint. A hand. It was pressed against the pane, next to patch that I assumed was his forehead. He had fallen forward or moved before his death. Had a malfunction woken him up and drowned him? I suddenly felt very sick, but I knew there was nothing in me that I could hurl out. Before I could sink to the floor, I had two more arms supporting me, but they could not stop me from looking at Arrhenius’ pod. He was a mere shadow at the bottom of the half-filled container.

Arrhenius. Malfunction.

“Miss Zhou - please try to stay calm…!”

Calm?! My mind was swept with every feasible horror scenario my friends could have undergone before ending up the way they did. I did of course hope that they had slipped away within the borders of their suspension between life and death, but I could not help seeing the endless other possibilities in front of my eyes. Drowning, freezing, suffocating and fully aware that their fate was sealed. Possibly staring at the other pods, malfunctioned or intact, awaiting the inevitable.  
At that moment, I found my voice again, along with my strength, my tears and my ability to shiver. 

I must have screamed for seconds. Nobody dared to administer any drugs to calm me down because of the state I was in. 

 

-8- Mei, November 2076, Ecopoint Antarctica (current events)

As promised Zarya stays close to me this entire time. She insists on sitting next to me on the flight and walks right near me as I lead the way through the icy ruins of my past scientific life. It all looks very familiar, and yet so different. Nature has taken over whatever we left behind that day – there is ice everywhere and many of the doors require minutes of heating to be opened.

Because I have the lead, I give myself the luxury of going through the storage containers and special work stations and labs first. They hold much less for me than the common room, the quarters or the cryo-room, even though a visit to those will be inevitable.  
“Clear!” I hear the shouts whenever one of my team mates investigates a container. It all looks like Talon has not been here yet. That, at least, is good.  
“Please keep an eye out over there,” I instruct as the terrain broadens. Mercy and Soldier veer away from our group. Pharah takes to the air. Reinhardt uses his shield as a snow plow as we advance to the next door. Behind us, a large icicle breaks off from its base and Zarya has a shield on me so quickly, I see the icicle fall through a pink veil and crash to the ground. Pharah appears on the other side of the camp, alerted by the noise. I immediately have my gun out, but we cannot make out anyone near the ledge. Nevertheless, Reinhardt keeps his shield in that general direction while we advance further. Mercy and Soldier return to us in a similarly alerted state. Minutes pass, but no one but us seems to be here.

When there nothing else to investigate and only one entrance left, I push myself to face the last container. I stand in front of a huge metal door. It’s a fancier model than the ones for the storage containers, lined with special insulation and layered with high quality paint. This door opens so smoothly you would not think it had not been operated for months. Soldier eyes it warily – likely assuming that the reason it opens so smoothly must be a recent or current visitor. He seems extremely alert as he enters, pointing his gun everywhere and expecting to be ambushed at any second.

Reinhardt follows him and their advance is accompanied by repeated shouts of Clear!”. Eventually, they both return to the front door and waves us to come inside. Mercy enters and Pharah lands next to me with a thud. She turns around in front of th edoor, surveying the area behind us. I hesitate and take a deep breath. Zarya, still true to her promise, waits until I am ready to set my foot into the common room and then follows me.

My stomach wants to crumble into tiny pieces. The air in the room is maybe a little stale, but everything else looks as if we had been working here just moments ago. The computers are still operable and even our virtual ping-pong game is still on pause, the holographic ball flickering in mid-air. Playing ping pong was the last thing Opara and Arrhenius did before getting ready to freeze. Opara had complained that she was winning and Arrhenius promised they would finish the game ‘later’. It was an expression of their hope and confidence that the cryo-freeze would really just be a nap. True enough, the likelihood of failure was slim, by all calculations and experience. And yet, nobody had ever operated such facilities under these extreme conditions and certainly not for so long.

I stare at the table and swallow the lump in my throat. Zarya’s is looking around with honest amazement. She sees our board with our notes, the kitchen and our recreation area, where we put up huge images of sunshine and the beach along the wall. Our only luxury - simple beach chairs - are distributed in front of the panorama. The equipment was meant to keep our spirits high, as if we needed that.

“Cozy place,” Pharah comments. She is still by the door, but peeking inside. Cozy is maybe not the exact right word. It’s still all steel and frost and our steps echo because the rooms are near-empty metal boxes. But in its own way, for me, this place used to be cozy. We had our own little family, enthusiastically working together, and so many little rituals and habits had wormed their way into our lives – who made coffee and when, who would cook and what – and when it was time for ping pong, silly chases through the quarters or serious scientific discussion. The container might seem bare in a cold, harsh landscape, but it truly holds memories that are warm in my heart.  
“Oh! It’s my birthday card!” I point at the board. It’s written on scrap paper, but it was the best birthday present ever - because all three of my fellow scientists had thought hard about the personal words they would add for me on the back. I take it off the board and put it in my pocket, feeling a tinge of happiness for having it. When I had been transported out of the Ecopoint, I had not remembered to fetch anything from my room. When a group went back to retriebe the bodies left in the pods, I asked them to bring my journals as those were the only personal items I really cared for. 

Reinhardt, Mercy and Soldier have advanced into the cryo-room. Pharah closes the container door behind her, but is suspiciously looking out of the windows. I have no doubt that her protective eye will notice the slightest unnatural movement out there and alert us.

We pass Arrhenius’ work station and because I cannot bring myself to enter the cryo-room yet, I turn around the corner and into our sleeping quarters. They are all closed. I am not sure whether anyone has removed my lab partners’ personal things from their rooms or my remaining stuff. I doubt it. I leave it to Zarya to check the place for suspicious activity and stand before my own room, my hand on the door panel. I stand there for so long, Zarya has time to check all the other rooms and return to me.  
“Yours?” Zarya asks, waiting patiently behind me. I nod and finally push to open the sliding door. The room is way more unspectacular than I remember it. I must have tidied it meticulously before the freeze, maybe to keep myself occupied. The sheets are so perfectly aligned, the books all neatly arranged. And even though the wall with photos seems a tad messy, I know my own signature. Every photo has been angled and placed to make me happy. I consider taking one or two, but that would disrupt the picture, so I leave it alone.

“Clear,” Zarya states unnecessarily.

 

-9- Mei, November 2076, Ecopoint Antarctica (current events)

Zarya and I return to the common room. There is a work station right by the cryo-room and I know I will have to get to it. It’s the only work station that stores all the data about the liquid and what it can be used for. It’s critical that we extract this information and leave the old, vulnerable software devoid of anything useful for Talon. I know that, but my steps become increasingly more heavy as I approach the area.

Mercy and Soldier have their backs to me. They are standing in front of the only open pod. My pod. I do not know where Reinhardt and Pharah are.  
I cannot quite understand why the other pods are closed. From what I remember, the bodies of my fellow scientists have been removed. Maybe they want to preserve the containers in their original, malfunctioned state for further investigation? But who would do that investigation, anyway? There is no mystery as to what happened.  
I do not notice that my feet stopped walking. I can still feel Zarya’s presence behind me like my shadow or guardian angel, and it helps me tremendously, but I can almost feel the same pain again I felt the last time standing here, knowing my friends were in those p0ods, lifeless and impossible to be woken. At that moment, I screamed. Now, my voice seems to have disappeared along with all my willpower to move forward.

“Mei… are you okay?” Mercy has turned around. She looks at me concernedly. I cannot answer.

“She’ll be fine. Just give us a moment,” Zarya answers for me. She looks at the window where Pharah has appeared again, returning from a vigilant tour from window to window, surveying the outside. Pharah give curt nod as their eyes meet and Zarya sets her particle canon on the floor.

I am utterly surprised when she kneels down behind my left and wraps a strong arm around my back and shoulder, pulling me against her side. I shiver, but I am not sure for what reasons exactly. I feel like such a mess, and so weak. I am fully aware of how ashamed I will be for this tomorrow and in future. Zarya despises weakness and I am acting like such a petty little child. Yet, here she is, giving me her ‘You got this,’ in a kind, supportive and wordless gesture.

Mercy pats Soldier’s shoulder and they both move down the room as if to investigate other areas. Pharah has returned to pacing a long the windows. Only Reinhardt approaches us with heavy steps, standing awkwardly next to me. “I’m so sorry, Mei,” his rough voice says and there is a little choke there.  
I allow myself a few more seconds before I disengage. Zarya straightens and picks up her blaster and the moment has passed us by without too much damage. I wished I had a voice to say something, but I cannot.

Without looking at the pods, I walk to the computer and connect a device to it, then click multiple windows out of the way that warn about the critical state of three of the cryo-pods and the level of the cryo liquid. The messages have turnd up sometime in the last decade, unseen and unheard, and nobody ever bothered to click them away.  
I try to concentrate on the data extraction and refuse to look at anything else but the screen. I know I am safe, as I have five guardians with me and do not need to worry about being attacked from outside.

 

10- Mei, November 2076, A memory of January 2076, a hospital

In the end, I did learn the details. The details about the world that I had missed for almost a decade, about omnics and Overwatch and the climate. But more importantly, I learned that my assumptions about the course of my friends’ deaths were more accurate than I wanted them to be.  
According to the data and the people who had rescued me, the first malfunction had occurred between Torres’ and Arrhenius’ pods simultaneously. Normally, there is a constant, slow flow of freshly cooled liquid from the top of the container to the bottom. Most of the liquid is returned to the main container, re-cooled and only some of it falls prey to thermodynamics and evaporates.

By some small software error, some of the inflowing cryo-fluid had been directed to Torres’ container instead of Arrhenius’. This added to the pressure in Torres’ pod until the pumps could no longer add any more liquid and began getting leaks due to overpressure. Eventually, the pumps towards Torres’ container stopped working because of the pressure and the flow of cryo-liquid ceased altogether. Because of the lack of circulation and the heightened pressure, the temperature in the pod rose (as much as it could in Antarctica) and ultimate woke Torres. With his first breath, he inhaled the stale cryo-fluid surrounding him and painfully drowned in it. It is a death that I do not wish upon anyone. Yegt, Torres – a good man with a giant heart – had to go through it.

Meanwhile, Arrhenius’ container had been draining because the outflow pump still maintained its job while the inflow pump was directing its flow to Torres’ pod. With no inflow to replace whatever was pumped out, the level of liquid in his pot sunk. That failure, too, must have risen the temperature and woken Arrhenius, who by then might have been up to his belly in cryo-liquid. He had probably had a few minutes of time to come back to consciousness and figure out what situation he was in and where it would lead to. Of course we cannot know how he dealt with that realization of his imminent death - whether he had tried to bring up the strength to break out into the harsh climate of Antarctica or just waited it out.

Opara was an indirect victim of the same software bug. As the pipe pressure towards Torres’ pod rose, a tiny valve, hardly bigger than a large button, had been catapulted out of its holding and into the glass of Opara’s pod. Over time, the crack had widened and eventually started leaking. Neither pressure, nor a significant loss of volume had contributed to heating her pod, so the change in temperature had to have been very slow and gradual. In all likelihood, Opara never had the chance to wake up, but froze to death in her sleep. Because the main point of cryo-freezing is to preserve a body in time, it was impossible to tell who of my friends had gone first and who had gone last. Not like it mattered - they all died with nobody truly alive or conscious around to do anything about it.

I learned all of these details far away from Antarctica. I had to learn them because I was asked to read all the files and make my educated notes on the disaster. For a long time, I felt guilty for every bite and every sip I took because I knew my friends would never have that again. That ping pong game would never be finished and most of their legacy – their work – had become old news or near obsolete in the past decade. 

I thought of grandma and apologized for not being able to bring up that smile.

 

11- Mei, November 2076, Ecopoint Antarctica (current events)

I hand the first data device over to Mercy and start wiping the hard drive clean. I fill it with scrambled data, wipe it again and repeat the process. Then I install a program that continues this cycle indefinitely. Talon will find nothing on these computers – not even our photos, nothing of the knowledge we have about the area and none of the other research from past missions that the other scientists and I had collected. I do this to the cryo-computer and to the main database and we check on the other work stations whether any data cam still be found, but there is nothing. I lose all sense of time. Since it is winter, it does not get dark out here, anyway, so it’s like we are all suspended in time here.

However, a good few hours must have passed. My companions, Pharah excepted, have visibly relaxed and look slightly bored with my work. I have told them they may not reboot the ping pong game and they have respected my wish. Zarya is stretched out in one of the beach chairs, looking way too big in the tiny frame. Reinhardt is relaxing on the floor in a corner. Mercy is leafing through some of the books that were left behind, seemingly excited about the slightly outdated literature. Soldier 76 is boredly studying a topographic map on the wall that simulates the anticipated movements and changes in the Antarctic ice sheet. The calculation is now a decade old. I never did follow up on whether those predictions were accurate, even though I would have the hindsight now.

When I am done, I hand the second copy of the data to Reinhardt for safekeeping, as specified via our strategic plan for this mission. This opration, in all our understanding, has gone very smoothly. Talon’s plans to invade here were evidently scheduled for a later time and they probably know nothing of our preventive measures. They will come here and find the place stripped of all information. Soldier seems satisfied and Mercy rather relieved. Surely, less information in Talon’s hands means less conflict and less fighting - that is what she wants after all.

“Good work. Let’s retreat,” Soldier commands. The squad gets up dutifully, even if Zarya is a bit reluctant to leave her comfortable chair.

“All clear,” Pharah announces dutifully. “No enemies sighted, no unusual occurrences. Ready to depart.”

“Right beside you,” Mercy rushed over to her with a smile.

“Can I… have a moment…?” I ask. I draw everyone’s eyes upon me, but it is too important to not speak up.

“Of course,” Soldier grants me my wish without hesitation. My team assembles by the door and waits. I look at them standing there and watching expectantly. With the clearest voice I can bring up, I say: “Alone. Please.”

For a moment, Soldier and Pharah look seriously stumped. Leaving a team member alone and without cover is not very common, nor very good combat practice, after all. Zarya sends an unsure look to Mercy, but whatever silent conversation is going on between them, it leads to them both accepting and condoning my wish. Before Pharah or Soldier can protest, Mercy suggests the team can retreat to the scientists’ quarters – with my permission – so they are neither far away, nor disturbing me. I allow them to use my room and anyone else’s, though I am not entirely sure I have the authority.

 

-12- Mei, November 2076, Ecopoint Antarctica (current events)

Somewhere behind me, a door slams shut and I am alone – I feel the loneliness more than ever. I feel how everyone is missing who should be here and I cannot help but wonder how many months or even years I have been quietly sleeping in my pod with my friends and colleagues already dead, just a few steps away from me. A glitch in the software has extinguished their lives indefinitely. Pure chance has preserved my life over theirs and it all seems unfair.

I step up to Arrhenius’ pod. I remember his spirit when he got in – or when he ended that ping pong game. He never doubted he would come out alive – and very soon. He went to sleep just like that, anticipating that the next thing he would know was the uncomfortable waking procedure.

“I’m so sorry…!” I whisper. And then I repeat it more loudly. “I’m sorry.”

I kneel on the floor with my hands on my knees in front of the empty pods. I want to ask for forgiveness, for being the one who lived. And before I know it, I am crying with my face on my gloves. I am crying my eyes out for the two men and the woman who have had the same dedication for our research I had. Who had shared the same hopes for our world and for our rescue. Who had been in high spirits for our project and worked just as hard and were just as smart as I was. Who were like me, who were with me, who were my team and my family. And they are gone and will never be woken like I was. And I still don’t understand why I am the one who survived.  
I forget about time; I forget about my new family – my new team mates – who so patiently granted me this moment to myself and the memories of my former friends. I forget that this is a barely running research station in the middle of the Antarctic ice and that I am kneeling on the cold steel floor. 

I do not stop crying until I am lifted off the floor and into Zarya’s arms. Like a child, I turn and hide my face on her shoulder. I feel embarrassed that in my relentless sobbing I have not even heard them approach - and now I cannot even stop. 

“It’s okay, Mei,” Mercy says soothingly. “We all understand.” There is pity in her voice. I catch a glimpse of Zarya’s blaster in Reinhard’s hands and I feel even more guilty. With my careless, emotional outburst, I have stalled the successful completion of our mission. I have further robbed one of my teammates of their weapon and am hindering the maneuvers of the other, who now has to carry that weapon. Every part of me says I need to get off Zarya’s arms and walk and behave like a proper fighter. However, none of my limbs want to move.

“Everything clear. No enemy contact expected,” says Pharah, more quietly than I know her to speak in battle.

“Still, Mei,” Mercy says close to me, “try to be quiet.” Her voice is kind, but alert. I understand that I can’t be sobbing hysterically because there is still a chance of running into Talon members. It’s nice enough that my team mates grant me this moment of pure weakness, I can’t be making it worse than I have to.

I swallow my sobs and bite my lower lip to calm myself down. Being pulled away and out into the cold feels good. Leaving this place feels good. My heart may never mend, even if I sometimes tell myself that it already did, but I think I can find my distance eventually.

Zarya carries me all the way back to our plane and even straps me into my seat. I am so ashamed and miserable, I cannot look at anyone, least of all her. What must she think of me? What must the others think of me? I know Reinhardt and Mercy have a very empathetic streak and I am probably ripping chunks of their hearts out. I suspect Pharah feels incredibly awkward. I do not know about Soldier and Zarya. I suspect they feel much like Pharah. I just feel terrible about myself and turn my face away to hide my still flowing tears. 

At some point, I exhaustedly start drifting off with my forehead against the window pane. I vaguely feel how Zarya reaches out and pulls me against herself but I am not even sure that is real. Regardless, I am so grateful she is here. She may not know how much she means to me, but in so many ways, she has saved me today.

 

-13- Mei, November 2076, Mei’s room and the common room (current events)

It takes me a while to stagger to my feet. Snowball is snoozing in the corner and I feel ashamed for feeling so alone the day before when the entire time, he was with me. He’s the only good thing that came out of the cryo-disaster and yesterday, I completely forgot to remember it. For a while, I sit next to him and watch him sleep.  
It takes me almost an hour to get ready. My thoughts keep drifting off and I stand still for many moments before I realize it.

I eventually end up dressed and go down to the common room of my current family – a family full of healers, soldiers, technical geniuses and tactical masterminds. The room is empty, save for Zarya, who is lounged on the sofa, playing with her phone. She puts it aside when I arrive and lets me know that there is still some breakfast in the kitchen. I decline because I am not feeling hungry at all. Instead, I sit on the arm of the sofa by her feet and contemplate her long, muscular and strong body. 

“Ah, new workout already showing?” she jokes and flexes an arm.

I blush a little and shake my head. “Just… you are very strong.”

“Da. Like bear!” she agrees proudly and grins. “I am the strongest!”

“I am not. And I am sorry about yesterday.” She must think me pathetic.

“Because you were crying?” she asks bluntly. 

“Yes… I know I should have been stronger than that.” I try to laugh, but it comes out sounding more sarcastic than I meant it to be.

“But going to places with terrible memories, that is very strong,” she replies. “I go to Russia and I see all the destruction… and then I get really angry,” she continues. “I cannot cry for my home and people, but I can feel such anger!” Her face darkens. “But I am not you and you are not me. We face bad things, but we have our own way of being strong about them.”

I cannot help but admit that crying was a relief for me, however horrible the moment may have been. However, I can see how shedding tears does not feel right for Zarya. Hopefully, anger has the same effect on her as crying has on me.

“I hate facing bad memories,” she explains. “Is no good for the mind.”

“Yeah… you are right about that,” I mumble awkwardly.

“But,” she adds, “you go anyway. I go anyway. Because we are stronger.” She looks at me with all seriousness and pumps her fist. I know she is trying to cheer me up and the unique way in which she does that makes me feel a little better. Still, I want to know whether she really does not think less of me because of how I sobbed. I cannot imagine that she does not perceive this as a kind of weakness that a person going to battle should neither have nor display. But Zarya is faster than my courage in asking her about it.

“You are strong, Mei,” she assures me. “Very impressive. Da.” She nods so decisively I have nothing to retort. I stare at the table at a loss of words and wonder what to do now.

“Thanks,” I manage to say, when I realize that I forgot to do so at a more appropriate time point.

“No need to thank me.” She waves her hand dismissively. “Biggest reward will be you smiling again.”  
I send her a sad smile. I am not over yesterday and she probably knows it. But her words are kind and ring true with me. There always needs to be someone who smiles and it should be me, according to grandma. Right now, I need to pass the role to someone else and it seems Zarya is willing to take over for now. She smiles back at me and then, out of nowhere, reaches for my arm.

“Come here, you polar bear!” She actually yanks me towards herself and I fall over onto her like an ice block. “I will break that frown. Soon.”  
I am not quite sure what is happening, so I stupidly tell her that there are no polar bears in Antarctica. Zarya does not care, she assures me, but she has something to show me. I am assuming that is the reason why she pulled me over because I suddenly have her cellphone in my face while being sprawled half on top of her.

“Here. For you.” She opens the photo album and swipes through the pictures. She has photographed every single little picture that I had in my room back at Ecopoint Antarctica – the ones I did not take off the wall. “So, who is this?” she asks pointing at a picture and I begin to tell her about the people in the photos. People I studied with, people who tutored me, who worked with me, some deceased family and forgotten friends – a lot of people who have aged and changed in the nine years that I haven’t and that I could not face nine years later. By a lack of other options, the Overwatch members are the only ones I have been able to engage with – and Mercy has been such a great help in the first few months. It was easy to fall back in place with her. We had not known each other too well back then and for some reason, she still seems a lot younger than she is - and that makes me feel less out of place.

Zarya asks lots of questions about the people in the photos. She does manage to make me feel better again. She promises to send me the pictures from her phone and then snaps a selfie of us laying there on the sofa, evidently now too lazy and comfortable to get up. Zarya’s long arm reaches for the remote and she zaps through the TV programs. I still feel incredibly exhausted from all the emotional turmoil of the previous day. 

I should probably get up - get up from Zarya because all of what we are doing feels too close for who we are to each other. But my mind is already weak and overrules my conscience with such ease. I embrace the handy excuse to feel her so close and we watch whatever show she chooses. I do not even care.

 

-14- Mercy, late November 2076, Mercy’s office (current events)

I walk in with a clipboard - a checklist for my stock of medical supplies. I almost fall over Zarya, who is, oddly enough, sitting backwards on my rolling chair, literally in the middle of the room, her arms crossed over the backrest.

“Oh!” I exclaim in surprise, not only because I did not expect anyone in the room, but also because it is her instead of anyone else. The truth is - our team has two kinds of patients. The most uncommon ones are people like Mei and Hana who will take advantage of a doctor being around and get little mishaps and problems checked out and properly treated immediately. While Mei can be a little shy with some procedures, Hana is always glad to trust me.

The more common patients here are the ones I constantly need to watch out for because they are always “okay” and “fine” or think they can treat themselves perfectly - until they are literally too beaten to walk straight. I have a constant eye on the likes of Soldier and Reinhardt to catch their troubles early and give them mandatory appointments with me before anything serious can develop. Even Pharah, who of all people, has every reason to trust me and be honest with me, needs to be dragged into the examination room every single time. Lately, I have found more ‘convincing’ ways to get her there and she is starting to accept that she really cannot hide anything from me anymore.

It beats my mind why anyone would choose pain when there is help available, bu thent I do not have the mindset of a soldier.  
Zarya, of course, also belongs to the I-am-perfectly-fine-thank-you category. So, the fact that she is sitting here unannounced and without being forced to be here means she is either aware whatever her problem is demands proper, inevitable medical care or she is at the brink of death. She does not look like she is going to keel over at any minute, so I figure she will stay alive long enough for me to get to the bottom of this.

“Zarya. How can I help you?” I say, leaning against the examination table. I put the clipboard aside and loosely stick my hands into my big lab coat pockets. I hope to make a relaxed impression. I want my patients to feel comfortable and at ease around me, but there are a few who hate going to the doctor, no matter on what friendly terms they are with the person otherwise. Zarya is most certainly in that category. She hates being in here, even if it is just to get a wound wrapped up.

“It is not about me.”

‘Jaja, schon klar,’ I think.

“Just tell me,” I encourage her with a friendly smile.

“It’s Mei.”

Mei? Well, now I am intrigued. Mei has been fawning over our Zarya for a while. Has our big Siberian bear finally caught up with that? 

“What about Mei? Is she alright?” I play oblivious, but I believe that any moment now, Zarya will tell me she does not know how to deal with Mei’s infatuation. I am in for a surprise. 

“She stopped smiling.” Zarya says matter-of-factly and for a moment she completely throws me off my concept. 

“What?” I blurt out. “She just smiled at you tonight giving you that extra sausage!” I correct her, trying to disperse those rather odd worried she has, but Zarya still looks very serious.

“No. She smiled with her lips.” Then she points at her own eyes with a harsh gesture. "But not here! It’s a smile for other people, but not for herself. It’s not Mei’s smile.” Her words are harsh with concern.

I am frankly a little amazed by Zarya’s perception. She doesn’t strike me as someone who observes other people a lot. She is more likely to be relied on to get things done once someone else identified a problem. I also instantly realize that she is right. Mei still is all smiles as ever, but there is something different about it - and Zarya, in her own way, pinpointed exactly what is odd about Mei lately. Zarya may describe it as a smile from the lips only, but we both know that this means the smile is not genuine. Genuinely meant and offered, surely, but not a smile that Mei feels herself. She is unhappy – and I cannot blame her.

I nod earnestly. “You are right. That visit to Antarctica took a toll on her, it seems…”

Zarya frowns. “What can we do? I don’t want her to feel so unhappy.”

I shake my head. "She will come around as she has before,” I suggest. Sure that visit was a damper on Mei’s spirits, but what a damper must it have been to be awoken from a cryo-pod nine years after you put yourself there? Evidently, she ended up being all smiles and full of kindness, as we all know, since we all cherish her for her positive spirit. If she can get through that and come out smiling, she surely can get over a reminder of it.

“You are not helping!” Zarya replies with obvious annoyance in her voice. I don’t even feel offended - I can tell she is just frustrated. It is also heart-warming that she’d be  
concerned about Mei. Surely, Mei has put her feelings on a person worthy of her attention. 

“I’m sorry,” I appease the pink bear in front of me. “It’s not something that passes easily, I guess. She must be suffering from survivor’s guilt - and on top of that feel quite disappointed that she was gone for nearly a decade and nobody even bothered looking for her or the other researchers." That sure would put a damper on my spirits.

Zarya considers my words and her features light up. She jumps off my chair and throws a friendly arm around me, crushing me in a one-armed bear hug. "You are good people, Mercy!” she exclaims. A moment later she is out of the door, screaming for Ana - of all people.

I am left wondering what’s going on under that magenta hair of hers.

 

-15- Mei, December 2076, A memory of December 2066, Ecopoint Antarctica

Christmas at Ecopoint Antarctica was a humble affair. 

“Looks like our presents will be late,” Opara exclaimed. She had flown all the way over to ‘our’ post office and come back empty-handed and snow-covered. I helped de-snow her and thanked her, smiling, for taking such effort.

“It does not matter,” I reassured her, “we will still have a wonderful celebration and we can have a second one when the boxes arrive!” I was truly and honestly elated and in high spirits. I had allowed myself to get into our precious paper stack to craft place mats and decorations. We had decided to make a special dinner by using an almost shameful amount of our supplies and make Christmas as festive as we could. 

Arrhenius had, in a moment of oenological genius, managed to turn cheap grape juice into a half-decent, spiced mulled wine. And Torres had, in a moment of pure leadership genius, locked all our work stations with a password only he knew to keep us all focused on taking a day off and enjoying our Christmas event.  
Arrhenius laughed at me as I was putting out more decorations. “What’s with all the paper snowflakes, Mei? Aren’t there enough of those out there already? Frankly, I am starting to hate snow!” 

"But it’s so festive!” I protested with an elated squeal. 

"Torres,” Arrhenius whined in a mocking tone, “Mei is wasting resources…!” Torres ignored his whining - mostly because as Arrhenius complained about my wastefulness, he was just using all of our green lab tape to tape the outline of a Christmas tree to the wall. I pointedly grabbed the red lab tape and started adding candles to his tree.  
Torres topped us all, though, by putting one of our precious real candles on the table. In fact, we had flash lights in abundance, but candles were in the very back of the closet, for the absolute worst emergencies imaginable.Such super-emergency supplies do have something holy about them, even if they might be superfluous and collecting dust. Torres was probably the only who would have dared to get into that stash for purely festive reasons. I loved him for it.

Arrhenius gave out his precious wine – in colorful plastic cups, but that was quite okay. We raised our glasses to each other, satisfied and feeling so at home in our little base.  
“To those here – and those absent,” Torres offered as a toast. I knew he was, in a kind way, expressing that he was missing his girlfriend Leila who would have to celebrate Christmas without him. She had taken a major part in convincing him to go here, understanding the deep interest he had in conducting this research and not wanting to hold him back.

Opara was next in the round and offered a hearty, “To well-equipped science in a remote place!” We laughed – it was just so like her to say that. She could get seriously excited about new, state-of-the art equipment or new programming.

Arrhenius’ eyes were already on the pot full of edible Christmas goodness. “To a good and tasty celebration!” he offered and made us laugh once more.  
It was my turn next. I looked at my colleagues – my friends – and how we were all here, celebrating a most humble Christmas somewhere at the end of the world, and feeling so at peace with each other. I found the comradery and the mind we shared so elating – and we were making fast progress thanks to our shared visions, our easy and mutual understanding and the knowledge we shared.

“To our future and that of this wonderful planet,” I finally gave me toast. We drank, my friends joked about my red cheeks and Arrhenius played a very badly executed Christmas tune on laboratory glass wear.

It was the 22nd Christmas of my life, and sure one of the most beautiful ones.

 

-16- Mei, December 2076 an Overwatch base (current events)

Even though some of us do have places to go to, our team has its own Christmas celebration. There was no question that everyone would make room in their schedules for this event so we could all meet. Because there are so many members in our team these days, especially with the “younger” generation like Hana and Lucío among us, the pile of presents is quite huge. Exchanging and unwrapping gifts will take quite a while – so we do this over coffee and cookies and mulled wine.  
This year should have been my 31st Christmas. But it’s only my 23rd. I was found just a couple of months ago in January and then for some weeks, shielded from the public until news of my recovery had died down. I was not equipped to face questions of nosy reporters and talk about the friends I had left behind. I joined the sort-of-reinstalled Overwatch as soon as I could and turned my back on the past.

This year, I am here with my new family and so grateful we grew so close in such a short time. Reinhardt is wearing a ridiculous Santa hat and Mercy is dressed up as an elf (much to Pharah’s enjoyment, who cannot seem to take her eyes off her). Much laughter ensues when we try to put Mercy’s elf jacket onto Zarya, which is - of course - impossible.  
I watch as the first presents get passed out. I dearly hope I met everyone’s taste with the ones I got. For some members, finding presents it is a little harder than for others, but as much as I can, I try to put something personal in my choices and whenever I have an idea, I will sit down and make things special. For example, I have made detailed little dolls of each other for Mercy and Pharah - a matching set that can be put together in a hug with a magnet, which then makes them light up. Mercy can’t stop telling me how cute she thinks it is and I can tell from the look of Pharah’s face, that she agrees, though her thanks are much more restrained and a little awkward.

I love these people with all my heart. They each have their little antics, their little thing. Pharah, so restrained and dutiful, but ultimately honest and often surprised by any affection she is getting. Ana has her watchful eye over us and sometimes finds the younger generation (including me), amusing and a little naïve. Reinhardt is the biggest sweetheart who would love to hide his age and puts a lot of heart into anything he can help us with. Soldier 76 is so very invested into being our mentor and protector because he truly cares for all of us, though he would never say it so directly. The list goes on and on. Each individual person here at our party is making my heart soar with pride and affection.

And then there is Zarya who gave up her career to serve a country she loves. Who owns the blunt force of a bulldozer and the kind heart of the sweetest friend anyone can imagine. She is beautiful and amusing, smart and always concerned about everyone around her. I have mulled forever over what to give her as a Christmas present, so afraid that I might not meet her taste at all. In the end, I had to do some very detailed digging to get what I want. It took some extra effort and customization. Now, I can’t wait to watch her unpack the device. I’ll have to explain it to her, because it is an odd-looking, hard cushion with an electrical box attached. It will allow Zarya, who has a well-warranted pride in her strength, to punch the cushion and measure the impact of her fist with scientific accuracy. I am quite certain that she will get a bunch of the other guys to compete with her (and win single-handedly – with her left hand). It will be fun and amusing to watch.

Halfway through the gift exchange, the floor is piled up high with discarded wrapping paper and boxes. Ana and I are starting to pick up a little, so people can at least walk. We laugh at each other about the “messy children”, even though we both know I am one of them.

I am stopped, though, when Zarya approaches me with a sizeable box. She is not smiling, which is throwing me off a little. She looks very determined and is looking straight into my eyes. My heart is taking uninvited leaps in my chest.

“Is that … for me?” I ask stupidly, when the box is nearly in my face.

“Da.”

Some other feeling washes over me in that moment. My feelings for Zarya of course cause all sorts of things within me anytime the two of us interact, but that’s not what is throwing me off right now. It’s the other people in the room. Starting with Ana, everyone has gotten a quieter and is looking at Zarya and me. There are still other gifts to be given out, so at best, this behavior is odd. 

“I think Zarya really outdid herself,” Mercy smirks at me, watching me with anticipation.

 

-17- Mei, December 2076, an Overwatch base (current events)

I panic – just a little. All this attention on me is a bit unnerving. Apparently everyone else knows what I am getting and I don’t. And everyone is spying for my reaction which puts me under a weird sort of pressure. Zarya grabs a small stool and sits in front of me as I carefully unbind the knot on the string of the package.

“You should tell her about it,” Mercy suggests to Zarya.

“In a moment,” Ana cuts in. “It might be better with something actually in her hand.”

I am getting quite curious now and I reach into a box. The first thing I notice is that there is not just one present in the box. There must be a handful. What I pull out first is a bound package of two books that seem familiar, but I cannot place them. They look slightly rumpled and the pages are thick and uneven. The top one is red and the bottom one is green. There is no doubt that there is something on the pages inside – maybe photos or artwork? It looks like a journal someone could write in, but while I write journals myself, I do not understand why I am getting one that it already filled out.  
I look at the books, hesitant and a bit stumped.

“It is a four-part gift,” Zarya explains. “This one - maybe open it on the first page.”

I undo the knot and open the top journal, the red one, on the first page. There is a name and address on the upper right corner. “Dr. D. Opara, Climatology Research Station, Ecopoint Antarctica.” I swallow. I recognize that neat handwriting immediately and I remember why the journals look so familiar in the first place: I have seen her write in them a couple of times.

I threaten to burst into tears right then and there, but I hold on to my nerves, supporting my mood by the utter amazement I feel about having these in my hands. “Where— did you get those?”

Zarya smiles, clearly liking the impact this has on me. “Ana helped. But… I got it from Opara’s …extended family.”  
“But why?” I wonder, looking at the two of them.

“Because—“ and here she hesitates. “I was wondering – you researchers were not available or responding anymore at some point, yes? But nobody looked for you. Nobody asked to search for you. It is strange, no? Four people missing and nobody checks at their workplace?”

“Yes… but … Overwatch was kind of gone shortly after. So… it was not like we still were employed. Even before that, we were pretty much left to our own devices.” It’s not like I haven’t pondered this fact myself. I had the computer send out mayday calls for two years without a response and the location of the blizzard that caught us should surely have alerted people who knew our location. Yet, we were discoverd by accident, and not by being actively searched because of being declared missing.  
“But- family!” Zarya protested. “Friends. I cannot imagine people who knew you back then were not confused. Everyone likes you, Mei – there is something missing in life when you are not around.”

I meet Mercy’s gaze and she grins - fully aware how much it affects me when Zarya says such things. I blush and immediately look at the book in my lap to not have to meet eyes with anyone else. 

Zarya apparently has not noticed my embarrassment, because she just continues with an air of nervous exciement. “Why did nobody from Opara’s family look for Opara?” she asks rhetorically. “Because… there is no family, da? Her personal things – nobody knew where to send them to. They had journals, but no details on living family. Very tragic.”  
Ana stands next to us, her arms crossed. “Upon Zarya’s request I did some investigating. As it turns out, they sent Opara’s journals to a remote uncle or cousin of some sort. The family kept them, but did not know what to do with them. There was no real emotional connection between his part of the family and Opara’s and they were barely even related.”  
“So we contacted them and asked them to send the journals here. To you. For you,” Zarya concludes.

Despite my former embarrassment, I look up at her, astonished. Even sitting on the small stool in front of me, she is towering over me. The implication of what she has initiated is slowly starting to sink in - and I try not to cry. It’s overwhelming… not only did Zarya come up with this idea in the first place, she and Ana went through a lot of effort to first locate and then retrieve these journals, knowing what they might mean to me.

“I— I don’t know how to thank you–!” I stutter.

“Is okay. It’s for you. If you can smile again, that would be what I want,” Zarya replies bluntly. “You can take time later to read,” she suggests. “Opara wrote good things about you. She was fond of you.”

“And we all understand why she would be,” Mercy adds with a wink.  
I hug the journals to my chest, still astonished that that my friends would be so kind to do this for me and that Opara’s remote family would hold on to these and then decide to give them up to someone they do not even know - someone who has failed to contact them when she should have and never apologized for their loss.

“There is more,” Zarya suggests, indicating towards the box.

 

-18- Mei, December 2076, an Overwatch base (current events)

Under everyone’s watchful eyes, I reach into the box again. Now that I am aware of what precious contents it holds, my hands are shaking a little.  
What I find next is a bound stack of letters with a picture on top. The picture shows a brightly decorated grave with an abundance of flowers and a few ribbons with last greetings for the deceased. I also recognize the name of the grave. It must be Arrhenius’ last resting place. I look at it, contemplating, wondering what it was like to bury someone who probably looked even more like they were sleeping than most dead people do anyway. 

Zarya’s voice takes me out of my contemplations. “Arrhenius… had family, yes? Strange no one would look for him, right?”  
I nod. I had never thought about this, but I remember that Arrhenius kept writing handwritten letters to his family. Our infrequent, extended flights to ‘our’ post office always held at least one of his letters and they were always addressed to various family members. It is strange that they did not investigate when the letters stopped. The mission was not so secret that they would not know where too look. 

I look at Zarya, believing she has answers for me – to questions I did not even know I had.

“I called the family. Long chat. Lots of talking,” Zarya explains. I am trying to imagine her having a long call of any sort with anyone and fail to come up with an image. She is not exactly the chatty type and I have not ever seen her on call with anyone for more than a few seconds. But then, she is talking quite a bit right now, and I had not expected that, either. That she would do what I could not - contact Arrhenius’ family - kind of blows my mind, though. Before I distanced myself from everything, I have tried a hundred times to come up with words to say to such people - and failed. I was incapable of making this move that she now has done in my stead.

“What… did they say…?” Under everyone’s watchful eyes, I feel this is the question I should be asking… right?

“Lots of sadness – for being angry. Arrhenius’ family was not on happy terms for many reasons,” she says, waving a hand vaguely. “They did not want to talk to him, but kept getting his letters.” 

As she says this, I realize that I cannot ever remember a time that we picked up a letter addressed to Arrhenius at the post office. Nothing outside of the usual, mission-related paperwork, at least. I did not really pay attention, though and never asked, either. He did not complain at any time nor did we ever talk about his family. I realize that I missed something big while I was around him.

“Over time, all of the family got more and more upset with each other of many small things. The fighting split the family apart. Then the letters stopped. They told me, that at the time they thought that Arrhenius no longer wants to talk. So much anger…!” she emphasizes.

But that was not what happened - Arrhenius was no longer able to write because he was cryo-frozen until his death. He had never willingly stopped writing – I know for certain because I was the one taking the last trip to the post office before the blizzard hit. And he had written five letters for that day that he had asked me to drop off. He was like this at work, too – he never stopped trying and he was the most persistent experimenter and researcher that I have ever met. He tweaked the equipment and tried new approaches to achieve his goals again and again. I somehow do not doubt that he tweaked the tone and contents of his letter as well to get a reaction. And in all our time there, he never lost a word over how much the family feud must have hurt him.

“Poor Arrhenius,” I hear myself mumble before I even know it.

“Yes – but!” Zarya continues and makes a well-placed pause. “They found out he was dead, da? And they were very sorry. Very guilty. Lots of guilt. But it was too late then. They wrote letters of apology, but he cannot read them now, of course.”

“Da.” I reflect sadly.

“So. When I called them I said that Arrhenius cannot read the letters, but you, Mei, you can. At the end, you were closer to him than they were.”  
But can I? I am not him. I cannot accept any apology on his behalf. And where was I ‘at the end’ when he died, anyway? I was in my cryo-pod, unaware, suspended… and he was in that container next to me, awake, struggling and waiting for death for who knows how long. I was oblivious, was floating there, never knowing his pain and not there to help him.

“You don’t have to,” Zarya assures me. “But — it is important you know that because of Arrhenius’ death, the family feud was settled. Everyone went to the funeral, everyone realized how terrible losing someone is when on bad terms. His family is okay now. Just sorry that Arrhenius cannot know that all is good. But you can.” She grabs my hand and pushes it, to bring the letters closer to my heart. The gesture is rough and sweet, just like her.

“I’m not sure I should—“ They are not my letters after all.

Here, Ana sighs with an audible eyeroll and cuts in. “But you can learn that your friend’s death was not in vain. You can read the letters and learn that his people are friends again now and full of regret. It’s a tragic course of things, but there is good that came of it. He ended a very long family feud.”  
I look up at Ana standing there and my heart stings for a moment. Her words – my grandmother could have spoken those. She always told me to seek the positive and here I am, getting lectured about the positive by Ana - the closest thing I probably have to a grandmother now.

I forgot about seeing the good – and maybe she has a point. These letters have been given to me, maybe not to accept apologies in Arrhenius’ stead, but to see what, in his death, this good man has done for the well-being of those he loved so much that he never gave up on reconciling with them. It is still a very sad story, but there is light in it and Zarya and Ana went to great lengths to show me.

I nod, struggling with being overwhelmed again, but the positive side of the matter starts to dawn on me a little. “Thank you.” It’s not for the letters, but for the lesson they just taught me.

Then I look at the box. There is still more in it. I am not sure whether I need a break or whether I really need to know.

 

-19- Mei, December 2076, an Overwatch base (current events)

“Do you… have something about Torres…?” I ask hopefully. Torres was boss and mentor back then. Soldier 76 reminds me so much of him sometimes. He was thoughtful, smart and knew to enjoy himself once in a while. He could get hopelessly romantic about his girlfriend back home and on the rare occasion that he managed to get a stable connection, he’d talk to her for as long as he could without her reprimanding him for neglecting his work. Coming to think of it, it is really strange, that of all people, Leila would not go put every wheel in motion to get someone to go to Ecopoint Antarctica to find him when she could not reach him anymore.  
I feel a twang of guilt there. I should have contacted her, but I ran away, started new things, and never bothered to look back. I left everything recklessly behind me and shielded myself from people that probably needed answers as badly as I did.

Zarya herself picks out a yellow-looking, aged newspaper from the box. I am a bit confused. I did not think in the age of screens and electrical banners, anyone still printed media on paper. It’s in Spanish and I cannot read any of it, but I do recognize the date. It’s mere days after we went into the freeze. With red pen, someone circled a small article on page three. There is no picture and no other words I can recognize.

“What… does this mean?” I ask. The other team members are still watching me and I have almost gotten used to it. Yet, there is expectation in everyone’s eyes, but I cannot fulfill any of it because I cannot grasp what I am holding.

Zarya grabs a handful of printouts from the box that I do recognize as more media articles. They, too, are in Spanish. But this time, I recognize the name of Torres’ girlfriend Leila on one of the printouts. I touch her name on the paper and try to make any sense of the words around it, but Spanish is beyond me.  
“She died. She got in an accident.” Zarya helps out. She is saying this so plainly, it gives me a sting. I wonder whether she understands that I knew this person by more than just by name. Evidently, the painful realization shows on my face and Zarya continues quickly.

“I know – very terrible, but…!” -That ‘but’ again.- “Torres never knew, right? And she never knew Torres got frozen and died. There was no heartbreak for her or him. They just did not know.”

I consider these words. It’s a rough, almost cold rationalization of the good in these tragic deaths, but it ultimately rings true, doesn’t it? I knew Torres very well and I knew Leila from the video chats. They were very devoted to each other and seeing one of them go through the pain of loss would have been terrible. Torres was much in control of his emotions, but a part of him was feeling deeply, especially when it came to Leila. It had supposedly taken lots of convincing to get him on this mission because he did not want to spend so much time away from her. However, lots of bribing and an interesting research topic – plus a nudge from Leila herself – had brought him to Antarctica with us.  
Leila, from what I gathered, wore her heart on her sleeve. She was cheerful, loving and quite down-to-earth. It would have been more than tragic to see her lose her grip in grief… but this way, they both went and never had to live without the other. At least not consciously. Even though it does not take away the tragedy of loss from Leila’s family who probably never knew how to reach Torres in Antarctica, it does shine a little light on the two lovers. Some may even believe that she and Torres were meant to be together forever and that they both died might just have set things right that otherwise would have been wrong. In an odd way, this is more comforting than it should be.  
I look at the papers in my hand, the journals and the letters on my lap and then at Zarya.

“Zarya. I don’t know what to say,” I admit. “I was always taught to look for the positive side in things. But for a time, I could not. And you just singlehandedly went and showed me what I was missing. It’s…” But I do not have the words.

Zarya did a service to me that is greater than anything anyone has ever done for me and I don’t even know how to thank her properly. The room is perfectly still as I am trying to keep myself under control and not cry again, like I did in Antarctica. I feel the loss of my friends so painfully, but what I am learning now seems to have a healing aspect. For the first time, I can feel the good kind of grief – the grief people need to come to terms with reality.

“I am not done,” Zarya says, steadfast, not quite reacting to my struggle. She looks determined, like she is following some sort of goal with these presents and she has not reached it yet. Her odd determination reminds me of Arrhenius.

“What else…?” I wonder, looking at the box. Indeed, at the bottom, there is another stack of papers.

“Mei,” Zarya says, but it does not sound like she is addressing me. “Nobody looked for you, Mei. But everyone who meets you loves you. It makes no sense.”

 

-20- Mei, December 2076, an Overwatch base (current events)

I shake my head. “It makes a lot of sense,” I correct her. “I have no family left.” The last one to die was my dear grandmother (not without reminding me that I should seek the positive things in life, always, and not forget to smile). I was also not known in research and I am not even sure many people knew where I was headed.  
“Not family, but friends, da?”

In her own way, Zarya is adorable for insisting that my disappearance cannot have gone unnoticed. The truth is, I wasn’t quite so popular when studying climatology - the subject itself was not the most renowned one and I have always been very quiet. At the university, I was just one of many faces. I knew a lot of people casually and we all liked each other, but we were all taking our own paths on the way out. We went to all sorts of different labs and got all very busy. We all met new people – it was the course of things, after all. I did not expect anyone to look for me.

“Zarya… I don’t think anyone was missing me enough to think I was lost. Everyone was very busy like me,” I try to explain to her.

“You are wrong,” she insists. “They missed you, but thought you were too busy to contact them.”

Maybe I should wonder how the thinks she knows all of that, but instead I feel another wave of guilt wash over me. It is not too far from the truth, maybe. I did write a few emails to their old addresses, but people had moved on and I had lost track of which countries and laboratories everyone had gone to and how to contact them. In addition, electronic communication in Antarctica was fickle at best and when we did get a stable line, we often left it to Torres and Leila. In my time there, I jotted out a few emails with decreasing fequency, because work got so exciting and caught my attention. I got absorbed and sometimes forgot to write back. My friends, too, got busy and did not reply, either, and I kind of understood.

I assumed everyone built up their own new social circles like I had in Antarctica. So while there was conversation between my study friends and me, it was going at an incredibly slow pace. It is not unlikely that nobody realized that communication had stopped altogether. Not until a lot of time had passed, at least. Months. Years? And then, what would they have done about it? Suspect there was an ongoing emergency and act upon this vague assumption? Why would they?

“I cannot blame them for thinking that. I was not a very good pen pal. And it is okay – everyone moves on. And they forget about each other.”

“But they did not forget you, Mei!” Zarya protests. “When you were rescued, it was all over the media, right?”

“I guess so…” … I was in a hospital, after all, shielded from the outside to keep my nerves calm and let me recover. Then I ran away to join this new team and pretended the past did not exist.

“Yes. But they could not contact you. No address. Nobody knew which hospital. No information was given out. All impossible!” She throws her hands up to emphasize.  
If these are Ana’s and Zarya’s speculations on how I could fall off the grid unnoticed, they are very educated guesses that even sound somewhat reasonable to me. However, it’s all based on an assumption of close friendships that I may not have had.

I want to explain this to Zarya, but I am stopped short as she speaks first - and her words feel like a blow to my head:

“So. I contacted all your friends.”

 

-21- Mei, December 2076, an Overwatch base (current events)

I do a double-take and stare at Zarya. How would she even know who those friends from university were?!  
“I searched for everyone in the photos from your room,” she explains with a sense of pride. “The photos you told me about when we viewed them on my phone. And everyone they could remember.”

I stare at her, clinging to all the things in my lap. “You… remembered everyone I told you about?” I blabber out with pure amazement.

“You mentioned enough for us to get started,” Ana cuts in. “From there it was just connections…”

I admit, I have no real idea how hard it would be to find these people. I have not really tried to pick up where I left off. I was so dismayed by the fact that the world had moved on for almost nine years without me and I could not imagine I was even able to connect with people who were now from another decade. The idea of all the estrangement I would encounter was not exactly appealing. And then I reconnected with Mercy over missions and I met new people like Hana and Zarya. It seemed like a good idea to just move on.  
It takes me a long moment to register that Zarya said she not only found, but also contacted all of my former friends. Now, she probably knows far more about them than I do and I suddenly feel like someone has turned a switch inside my heart. I am full of longing for all the kind faces that I had so much fun with at school. I remember all their hopes and dreams and I have no idea whether any of those got fulfilled.

“Is everyone okay? Alive? Successful?” These questions are burning in me and they burst out before I can stop myself. I may not have been a good pen pal, because I wrote so rarely, but I was always interested in their lives, rather than talking about mine. I loved reading their infrequent answers. Since January, I have buried that interest out of fear of a world that was not part of my own timeline anymore. Now it resurfaces with an odd urgency.

Zarya hands me a stack of letters from the box. “I told them, I know how to contact you. I told them they can write to me and I will give you the letters.” She pats the letters in my hand. “They were very relieved. They wanted to contact you for a long time since they knew what happened, but could not figure out how to. They have missed you. They have worried about you. And they feel sorry for not realizing that something was wrong when you stopped writing altogether.”

I look down at the letters – at the names of the senders and my breath catches in my throat. My hands shiver as I go through the envelopes. There is a bunch of them, some thick with the long letters inside of them. Some seem to be from people I thought I had met only fleetingly, but who still wanted to reply to Zarya’s call. My heart is stuck in my throat somewhere, pounding. My fingers are shivering and I nearly drop the stack of things Zarya has put into my lap.

“I think the news that you can be contacted now spread beyond mine and Ana’s reach… I got letters from people I have not talked to myself. You were popular.”

My heart leaps when I come across a yellow envelope with a very familiar and meaningful name on it and I tear it open before I can stop myself. My hand shivers so much that I cannot really get the letter out and Zarya has to help me. The letter is from a woman who I used to share a lot of classes with. We were close, helped each other out and got excited by very similar things – from research to fashion to TV shows. I am first and foremost relieved she is still alive. And that she remembers me.

I press shivering fingers to my lips as I read the first few lines - and my heart warms instantly. It’s like she is sitting right there, talking to me – that same spritely spirit. I was so wrong – so very wrong – about people changing so much that I could not connect with them anymore. I connect instantly through this letter.

'I have missed you so much! I nearly cried when Zarya told me who she is and that she is close to you and can help me get a letter to you!! I have so much to tell you, Mei! So much has happened – but most of all, I was so shocked and relieved when I heard your name on the news. I cannot possibly understand what you have gone through, but I am so, so, so glad you are well. So relieved. The world just cannot be the same, good place without you. Please let me know-'

The letter continues far beyond that, but my vision is too blurry to read any further. I cover my face with my hand, finally unable to hold back any longer, but too embarrassed to watch everyone’s faces looking at me as I sit there, crying. 

However, it seems Zarya still isn’t done with tearing my heart apart in the best way possible. She puts a hand on my shoulder to get my attention and I peek through my fingers to give it to her.

“What I want you to know, Mei,” she says, talking softly over my quiet sobs. “These deaths are terrible. I would never deny it. But Opara would have been very lonely coming home from Antarctica. No family. No friends I learned of. And Arrhenius’ death made lots of people come back together and stop fighting. Torres had only heartbreak waiting for him. It’s allvery tragic. But you – you survived. And there are many, many people who are very happy to see you back.”

“And many people here who are happy to have gotten the chance to know you,” Mercy adds from somewhere behind Zarya. 

I have barely ever heard Zarya talk this much, but I take every word in with full attention, even though I am still covering my leaking eyes and smudging my glasses.  
“This,” she indicates at all the things in my lap, “is very tragic, but the person who survived is someone who has been truly missed and who makes people smile.”

I feel Zarya’s hand lingering on my shoulder. She is leaning close to speak to me only without anyone else overhearing. Her voice is so near to me, it makes everything both better and worse.

“I don’t want you to lose that smile like you have lately. It’s very important. You hold us together because you are positive and sweet. We do not want to see you so sad.”

I nod, I smile and I cry all at the same time, but I certainly cannot speak.

I notice how Zarya is lifting the stacks of papers, articles, letters and books off my lap, where they threaten to slip. With her big hands, she can grasp the whole pile at once. I let her, unable to do much but hide my face and sniffle.

“Do you want to go someplace quiet?” she asks and I just nod. I am a blotchy, salty-wet mess, after all, with everyone in the room still watching me in silence - the occassional sniffle from Reinhardt excepted. I just want to curl up someplace and let Zarya’s words and her incredible deeds sink in.

The truth is, I cannot tell whether any of the other researchers would not have gotten similar letters, if they had been the ones who survived. I do not doubt that any one of them could have friends they lost track of. They could also have found new friends and made them happy, like Zarya claims I have. We cannot know, in the end.

During my recovery, I have always assumed that, much like Opara’s death, the end of my life would have gone more or less unnoticed. We both had no family and I did not expect anyone was truly missing me. I thought the lack of rescue effort attested to that.

Regardless… the important lesson I was reminded of today was grandma’s: It could have been so much worse. Arrhenius, Torres and Opara could have left nothing but lovers and grieving friends and family behind. For Arrhenius this is partially true, but had he been rescued after just a couple of days or weeks as we had planned, that family feud would likely have continued. I do not even want to imagine the pain Torres would have gone through, knowing he lost Leila.

The fact that they left no one extremely close behind is of course part of the reason why we were not searched for in the first place. Maybe this tragedy could have been prevented. But maybe it was exactly that - the lack of connection to our homes, what made us so excited to leave for Antarctica in the first place. So in the end, maybe it all plays together. 

It does not really matter… because I think I finally have a chance to come to terms that things went the way they did, no matter why exactly. I do not know how Zarya (and Ana) knew to do this, but I learned exactly what I needed to learn to become myself again. Maybe not right this instant, but I can already feel that positivity, that my grandma so carefully instilledin me, stirring deep inside of me.

Zarya leads me out of the room, someplace quiet. I notice I am sitting on some bed, but little else. I also notice she does not leave and she has brought all those presents, too.

 

-22- Mei, December 2076, Zarya’s room at an Overwatch base (current events)

I need a while to relax and calm down. Ana brings us tea – partially because she thinks tea is a solution for everything, but she ends up being right in this case. The warm liquid and the act of drinking it slowly are calming me down. I do not understand why Zarya is by my side this entire time, like she has been in Antarctica. But I am glad for it. Maybe because it is her gift and she feels responsible. Maybe because everyone agreed I should not be alone.

She spends a whole long while doing nothing, just caressing my shoulder as I sit on that bed and try to calm myself down, but fail every now and then. Then, when I am able to breathe calmly again, she opens Opara’s journal and - with her sweet accent – begins to read it out loud.

Mei is such fun! She is always happy and laughing and she has some great ideas about how to approach our projects. Rumor has it she was quite a good student, but I don’t even  
care about that. She is just so honest and nice – we are quite lucky to have someone with so much enthusiasm here that can pull us all along. I mean - I have to spend months, maybe years with these people and I think all of them are terrific. Mei even volunteered to make food tonight and it was so good. And her all-encompassing kindness and lively spirit helped break the ice at the table as well. Haha. ‘Break the ice’ – that is such a terrible pun for this place. Oh man! I plan on diving fully into work tomorrow. We’ll get to the bottom of this. We are like a band of crazy climate super heroes! Ho!

She shows me the picture that Opara printed and glued into her journal. It was the first photo Arrhenius shot of us to document life at the Ecopoint and we all look so young and innocent. I also take a look at the entry and the familiar way she wrote. Her handwriting was always tiny and condensed, but her Fs and Ls just took up so much room in comparison – we used to tease her for it. One time, when she had enough, she told us her Fs and Ls stood for fun and life and that of course needed a lot of room.  
I smile at the fond memories, the image and for everything Zarya has done for me today. I am truly blessed with friends, old and new.

“You are smiling again,” Zarya notices happily.

“Yeah,” I realize. “They were great people. The world is better off having had them, even if it was not for too long. And now there are other better people to take their place. People like you.”

“And you,” Zarya adds.

I look over her, tear-damp, but smiling and she seems to enjoy it. “What you did with all of this,” I tell her, “is absolutely overwhelming. Nobody has ever spent so much work and effort to be nice to me and I do not even know what to say to show you how much this means to me.”

Zarya smiles. “Nothing. Nothing at all. ‘People’ should spend more work and effort on your happiness. You constantly spend your effort on spreading happiness. It’s only fair to give back.”

I just really want to hug her. The goodness of her heart is overwhelming me. And she smiles at me so beautifully – from her pink lips to her mesmerizing green eyes. It sends chills down my spine that she would send this expression to me – to me only.

 

-23- Mei, December 2076, an Overewatch base (current events)

When I return to the party, I am greeted by fond smiles and served with a cup of mulled wine. Mercy quite bluntly tells me she is glad to soon have the old Mei back, though she says not to hide it, if I feel sad. Everyone praises Zarya for the extended effort she took to “get our old Mei back”. I also get a promise that today, my new friends will distract me as it all must be quite overwhelming for me. 

Soldier and Winston even apologize for sending me back to Antarctica in the first place and that they had no idea what it would do to me, though I assure them I know why it was necessary. It takes some effort to change the subject, but I am really exhausted with all the overwhelming info and new views I have received in the past few hours, and I just want to have some nice and light entertainment.

To initiate it, I hand Zarya her present and tell her she needs to test her strength against everyone else right away. We laugh when Hana is the first to volunteer having a “punching match” with Zarya and the device. She of course loses badly.

“Nah! Hana is just trying to wear her down so that Zarya punches that thing about a hundred times and then gets so exhausted, she will lose when it is my turn,” Mercy assures us and we all laugh. Zarya clarifies that a hundred punches have no chance of getting her exhausted. She suggest that Hana should get her mech to have better odds. Hana declines and Winston barges in to challenge our Siberian bear.

I watch happily, once more reminded that I do have a new family here and that they are all wonderful. I feel so at home with all of them. It hurts losing people you once felt connected to, but it’s beautiful that we humans have the ability to reconnect and adapt until we find happiness again.

I watch for a while, lose a punching match against Zarya (of course) and drink enough mulled wine to make my cheeks all red. Hana, Lena and I end up being silly, jumping around and dancing on the sofa to old Christmas tunes that Reinhardt has dug up from somewhere. I am laughing and spinning and getting exhausted – and more and more hungry.  
Mercy, Reinhardt and Lena have volunteered as the responsible party for the Christmas dinner. I believe they just wanted to make sure the meal is super-European (the way they like it), but it’s generally a good deal for everyone. While they set the table and the others are running around to help, I sit and watch for a moment, full of fondness for these people. It feels so much better to be happy than guilt-ridden and sad.

Zarya sits down next to me by the far end of the sofa where I have retreated with a near-empty mug of mulled wine. I twitch a little – it’s that old jolt of joy that I tend to get when she walks into the room and since I am happier tonight than I was before, it seems even more intense. I probably would have controlled my reaction a lot better if I had seen her approach.

“Better now?”

“Lots,” I admit. “It seems strange my mood should change so quickly. But I learned some things. Still need some thinking, but I think… I will be a lot better from here on.”  
“I think we are all okay with that. I think your former researcher-friends would be, too.” She fiddles with her fingers, rubbing her thumb over her shiny pink nail polish. There is a long pause where we are just sitting there, watching people set up the table from our remote corner. Zarya seems busy with her own thoughts, but then she visibly snaps out of them, as if remembering something.

“Mei?”

“Hm?”

“Your friends also wrote to me. You know, they were happy I connected you with them and kindly sent letters for me with yours.”

I smile. “They are all very sweet people. I am not surprised. And you deserve all the thanks they offered – and more.”

Zarya nods. She seems distracted, though, like she has not really heard me. “Yes. Really. They ask me – interesting questions.”

“Oh? Like what?” I look over at her, but she does not look back. She is busy contemplating her hands and it feels at odds with me. She was all smiles and eye contact with me earlier and talked so much. Now she is seemingly caught up in thoughts. She appeared so sure of everything else she said earlier and now she is mulling over something.

“They say – are asking – Mei had posters of you in her dorm room at university.”

I can feel my cheeks turn red and it is not because of the mulled wine I am almost spilling. I do not quite know how to reply to that other than wanting to fly right over to wherever the people who wrote that live now and ask them why on earth they would tell Zarya that. Since I can neither do that, nor find a suitable reply to Zarya, I just sit there and stare at my cup.

“One asked ‘Oh, you’re her girlfriend now?’” she cites the letter. “’Very lucky for her. She always was so fond of you.’”

 

-24- Mei, December 2076, an Overwatch base (current events)

I definitely want the floor to swallow me whole at that moment. Of course all this effort she put into finding these people to contact me would suit the actions of a loving partner. And of course they are very right about those posters and my fondness of strong women. I do not know the details, but it seems they quite selectively omitted or forgot that while Zarya’s promotional posters, as young as she was at the time, dominated my dorm room, there were some other strong ladies there as well. Regardless, if Zarya can put two and two together – and she sure is capable of that – she will realize that my time at college falls into a time span where she was not really known outside of Russia. So why would I even be able to obtain posters of her?

I very seriously want to run out of the room. I feel so exposed - and both lucky and surprised that this time, everyone else is busy setting the table and not curiously checking out why Mei is the color of ripe tomato.

“Uh.. well…” I stutter. “I guess I did have some posters of you.” Stupid. Why would I admit to that?

“Ah. I did not know I was known that far away. That is nice.”

“I– guess?” My voice makes an unnatural leap at the end. I mean, we haven’t addressed the fact that my former friends think I totally asked Zarya out and ended up going out with her. This is so awkward!

Zarya taps the back of her own hand, as if she is nervous. “I hope you are not disappointed.”

I can’t help it: I tear my eyes away from the mug and stare at her, despite my deep embarrassmen. Am I that obvious? “I—d-disappointed?” I stutter. “W-why would I be disappointed?” The moment feels like my life is going up in flames. The woman I have been pining over for months is asking me whether I am disappointed we are not together. How do I even answer that?

“Because –“ Zarya looks back and her green eyes just make me freeze. My heart is pounding ten miles a minute, and I am probably looking like my head is going to explode from overheating any second now. She looks straight at me as she continues. “Zarya in the magazines is not so much like me. Interviews are very … skewed. Very selective. Especially in Russia.”

I am so stumped by that reply not being about how she is not actually my girlfriend - so I just stupidly blurt out: “I can’t read Russian interviews. They are in Russian.” And soon after that, maybe when Zarya got more famous, I was not in a state that anyone would consider truly alive. Certainly not alive enough to read interviews.

“But you could still be disappointed,” Zarya insists. “Posters - they have a certain image. I might be different - and now I am also much older,” she laughs awkwardly. But it`s such  
a soft laugh, it makes my insides squirm with both embarrassment and delight. 

“No! No,” I blurt out again. “I mean- I … uh- you are a wonderful person. I don’t know what these interviews said, but you are so much better in real life than anything I could possibly imagine! You are much more kind than those tough poses suggest and you are so beautif—“ I realize what I am saying, my eyes go wide and I turn back to my mug, wishing for all the world it could suck me in and never spit me back out.

“Ah. So you are a fan, yes?” Zarya asks. “Or were. I am not active anymore.”

I don’t even know whether I was a fan. I literally did not watch any of her competitions, but I found her very attractive. The posters I did have up where the few where they had not posed her to look tough, but where she was smiling or being funny. One was a small snatched picture from an interview that had her in a tailored suit. It nearly made me squeal when I found it – so beautiful. But was I a fan? I cannot answer that. I do not know how to.

“I mean, a sports fan. Not like wanting a girlfriend,” Zarya asks, probably thinking she needs to clarify.  
I still cannot answer – there is just no way out. I could either lie which I do not want to do – Zarya does not deserve a lie, especially after all she has done today – or be honest, which would probably wreck me with embarrassment. I remain silent, not considering that if I really just was a sports fan, it would have been a quick and easy answer. Hesitation makes no sense with such a response… or rather, it completely gives me away.

“Mei?” Zarya seems concerned. 

She deserves an answer, I know. But I am struggling with the right words. “Uhm….,” I say, mostly to make it clear to Zarya that I am going to answer eventually. I think Zarya gets the hint because she does not push again, even when I pause.

Everything rains down on me – from how beautiful she is, how sweet her gestures and antics are, how much I love her accent and what incredible, mind-blowing kindness she has shown me today.

I brace myself. “No. Like wanting a girlfriend is right,” I admit, my heart pounding and my breath picking up with nervousness. I peek over, a mere sideglance, because I just can’t look right at her right now.

“Ah. But – that was a long time ago, yes. Not anymore? I’m not the woman you imagined behind the picture? Not the woman you want as a girlfriend?” Zarya replies, her smart green eyes watching me intently.

My chest feels so tight right now. “For me… that felt not so long ago,” I remind her. In my internal time line, I was a student barely three years ago and then deployed to antarctica. “And you are more than I ever imagined.” I smile hesitantly, but genuinely. There is no shame in loving someone so great - I can only hope she understands I do so because she is a good person. With some luck, it may leave good feelings behind instead of awkwardness.

“Maybe, my love can be your Christmas present,” I suggest.

 

-25- Mei, December 2076, an Overwatch base (current events)

Zarya blinks at me. “You can give that as a present?” She smiles and reaches over with her hand, gently turning my head towards her. It’s such a sweet gesture, I can’t help but follow the tug. 

“That would have been way easier to wrap than all those letters,” she says.  
My chest threatens to burst apart – my heart is pounding so much. Is this real? Is this happening? Was that a confession?  
I hardly dare to breathe. The moment between her words, her gesture and her leaning closer seems to take an eternity. In the end, I feel her gentle lips on my forehead. They are soft and warm, and they leave me completely confused.

I feel dazed, to say the least. An immediate, half-irrational doubt creeps up in me, and makes me contemplate what other meanings her words could have had. Or whether, in my hopeful foolishness I misunderstood her. There are many ways to love someone, not all of them have to be romantic.

I look at her awkwardly, though she never stops smiling.

“Good,” she says, not really making things any clearer for me. “But I have one condition.”  
I just stare at her like one dumbfounded idiot.

“You need to smile,” she says quietly. “Sharing love is a good thing, yes?” Her thumb is caressing my cheek. “I love you, smiling or not. But it’s a special treat when you do.”  
At this moment, I cannot even help it – I burst into a radiant smile.

“Okay!” I exclaim. And she watches me, looks at my face and my smile and seems more than satisfied.  
We linger there for a moment and I am caught up in her happy eyes. I can’t quite grasp what she is doing, but the way she looks back at me is so pure and intense, I feel trapped in her gaze. She reaches out and brushes my cheek right under my eye and the touch feels like it’s full of electricity.  
I am too shy to just kiss her. Too awkward to tell her that I love her - and too caught up in the moment to break it. But something needs to be said or we will be trapped staring like this forever.

“Zarya, does this mean-? Are we going out?” I ask, giddy with hope and potential happiness.

“Da. If you want.”

“Yes!” How could she ever think I would not? She is wonderful and if she had not won my heart so often before, she would have done so tonight with all the meaningful gifts she has brought to me.

A long anticipated, real kiss lingers in the air, but it does not come. I am still too shy to initiate such a thing and I have no idea why she is not doing it. She always seems to strong and confident, and here we are, lingering face to face and time has stopped. 

“Children. This is unbearable!” I hear Ana’s voice. Somehow, she is standing right behind us. I swear I have no clue how she got there. She has this unbelievable ability to sneak up on everything and everyone and right now, it gives me half a heart attack.  
Both Zarya and I turn to look up at her, shocked and embarrassed because we were caught in such a fragile moment. But we do not end up seeing Ana’s face as expected. Instead, there is a bundle – a mistletoe – neatly hanging off her biotic rifle, right above our heads.

“You know what to do!” Ana commands nonchalantly.

In the end, I do not know who of us leans over first, but we meet somewhere in the middle under the mistletoe and it feels just perfect. Zarya is kissing me gently, so unlike anything you would expect from someone with such a strong body and harsh accent. Her hand drops slowly and finally lingers on my waist. It is so feathery light it gives me tingles.

I keep my eyes closed, fully here in the moment. Her lips play softly with mine, kneading them and snatching them between hers. I hardly dare to breathe as I part my lips enough  
to meet the tip of her tongue inside her mouth. Her grip on my waist tightens a little in response. She parts her lips more to grant me better access and I just let go of myself to enjoy this precious moment.

Time stands still in a completely different way than it ever has for me. Everything I have dreamed of these past couple of months – and more – is in my grasp. Zarya smells like a warm ocean and tastes like mulled wine. My shivering hand reaches out to hold on to her arm and my thoughts fall apart. I can’t think of anything and just feel our kiss. It’s so sweet and so intimate and it leaves no doubt about our feelings for each other. I want this moment to just last forever, but-

Cheers, claps and laughter ensue. I am pulled out of my sweet Zarya-kissing moment and I am still half-dazed. I am turning bright red as I see everyone grouped around the table at the other end of the room, watching Zarya and me make out on the sofa. Even Zarya has changed color enough to match her nail polish and hair.  
Ana is at the very front of the group with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face. I have not heard her leave with her biotic rifle and her mistletoe, but she is standing there as if she had never been anywhere else. Her rifle is nowhere in sight. Whether or not she has alerted everyone to our moment, it is clear that nobody missed seeing us kiss so intimately on the sofa.

“Wohoo! About time that happened!” Lúcio cries out from the back of the group, making everyone laugh.

“Get a room next time, though, luvs!” Lena adds cheerfully.

Almost automatically, I hide my face behind my hand, unable to look at anyone, least of all Zarya. But Zarya gently -yet insistently- grabs my wrist and pulls my hand away from my face, exposing me. I look at her, wanting to beg her to let me hide.

“No, no,” she says quietly. “No shame. There is no shame in love.”  
In front of everyone, she pulls me close once more and kisses me softly on the lips.

When we pull apart this time, I just smile.

~The End~

**Author's Note:**

> There is a mature-audience continuation to this story. Please let me know if you are interested.


End file.
